How to Set up a Google Alert for Craigslist

Want to get updated with the latest Craigslist postings? You can use Google Alerts to get notified when the product you want gets listed. Due to some changes that Google has made, this is no longer as effective as it used to be, but you can still get lots of alerts for product listings.

Google no longer indexes the Craigslist sites, meaning that your alerts will not be instantaneous. Setting up a Google Alert will still inform you of listings, but will not substitute monitoring the Craigslist site manually.

Enter in your search term into the "Create an alert about" box. Enter in the the item that you want to be notified about. For example, if you are looking for new listings of Honda Civics, type honda civic. Try to keep the search term broad to ensure you get as many results as possible.[1]

If you want the search engine to exclude words from your search, use a minus sign in front of the word you wish to exclude. For example "chair -antique."

Remember that a broad search term like "car" can generate more results than you need while a more specific term like "sapphire blue Ford Focus" may not generate very frequent results.

If you want Google to only tag your exact words and not include spelling variations and synonyms, then put quotes around your search term. For example, "boar" in quotes will exclude "board" from popping up in your search.

Add the Craigslist site modifier to the end of the query. After you type in your query, enter in the Craigslist address for your city. Make sure to enter your city's specific address, otherwise you will get results from all of the Craigslist sites.

To enter in the Craigslist search address, type site:cityname.craigslist.org. Replace cityname with your local Craigslist city page.

For example, if you wanted to search for Honda Civics in Seattle, your "Search query" field would look like honda civic site:seattle.craigslist.org. You will see a preview of matching results in the right frame.

If you are unsure what Craigslist address you should use, go the the Craigslist.org homepage and browse the list for the closest site to your location.

You can create multiple alerts for multiple cities if there are several cities in your region.

Set your alert frequency. Use the top drop-down menu to select how often you want to be notified at alerts. By default, this will be set to "At most once a day". If you want alerts as soon as they appear, select "As-it-happens".[2]

Click the "Create Alert" button to start the alert. You will receive updates at the interval you set to your email address or RSS feed. You will be taken to your list of Alerts, where you can choose to create more or modify any existing ones.